Tomorrow's Narratives

Project into the future to elicit a common vision

applied for

Ideation

Prototyping

Stakeholders

Offering

Narrative

Simulation

also called

Tomorrow's Headlines, Advertising Posters, Service Evidencing

what is it

The tomorrow’s narratives is an envisioning technique based on the idea of writing fictional articles that simulate the moment in which the product or service will be launched in the maket: how will the service be introduced to its potential users? What values and features will be highlighted? Who is going to talk about it? Writing and sharing these fictional articles with the project team (e.g. during ideation workshop) help explore different possibilities and align on a common vision. The article could be replaced with simulated blog posts, ADV posters or movies, TED talks, etc.: any form of communication that help projecting in the moment in which the service will be available to its users.

use it to

Brainstorm ideas during co-design sessions and align on key values and visions.

remember to

Push the boundaries: be provocative and creative when writing it.

case studies

2

feature image of 'Envisioning the future leaders and strategy of a pharmaceutical company' case study

Example by oblo

Envisioning the future leaders and strategy of a pharmaceutical company

An exercise to imagine job skills and requirements of future decision makers

description

Discussing about the future strategy of a company is always complex. In the context of an ideation workshops about the future strategy of a pharmaceutical company, it was very useful to use the technique of Tomorrow’s Narratives in order to avoid getting stuck into today’s problems as well as completely forgetting the vision is to suddenly project everyone in the future. Stakeholders were asked to imagine job skills and requirements of the future decision makers of the company: they outlined the description, the educational path, the soft and hard skill they should own in order to pursue the internal innovation they imagine for the company.

what is interesting

The exercise can help clarifying several aspects as well as align all the stakeholders’ expectations about the future strategy of their company. Some examples of questions this activity may help answer to: is the vision for the future of the company shared among the different stakeholders? Is there alignment around the key value proposition of the new product or service under development? How does a new solution fit the overall strategy?

Read more about this case study

View more